Final Thoughts on/from THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY
In reading Sternhell’s THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY, I was struck by how some smart people, and likely even decent people, lent their weight to the movement in Europe toward fascism. Two things in particular struck me. First, a point that’s obvious: people often cannot see clearly where their efforts are leading; the evils that are clear in retrospect are not reliably visible to people in advance. Second, and related: it is not only the evil who contribute to evil; or, to put it another way, or perhaps make a different point, decent people with a piece of the truth can often be dangerous and destructive because they lose sight of other pieces of the truth.
It’s one thing to acknowledge that something has shortcomings (something like, say, “liberal democracy,” or “the Enlightenment project”). It’s another to simply reject that imperfect thing and embrace some alternative that swings the pendulum in some opposite direction. The difference can be that between wisdom and folly.
With those thoughts, I turn now to presenting some final passages from the last pages of Sternhell’s book.
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“[O]ne must always be aware of the tremendous difference between an attitude that recognizes the importance of irrational factors in human affairs and rejects a narrow, vulgar materialism or an arid, often stultifying positivism and one that is purely antirational. A recognition of an area not controlled by reason and an acknowledgment that it cannot be explored by rational means alone is one thing; the intellectual and political exploitation of antirationalism is quite another.
“Here one finds the essential difference between thinkers who recognized the existence of irrational factors and their influence on society and those who made irrationalism the core of their teaching and an intellectual and political tool to win the support of the masses. Husserl also recognized the weakness of the naive rationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but, faced with the essentially irrationalistic approach of Heidegger and his followers, he made a spirited defense of the essential value of rationalism: ‘I too think that the European crisis derives from the perversions of rationalism,’ he wrote, ‘but there is no reason to say that rationalism is bad in itself or that it is of secondary importance to life as a whole.’ This basic conception placed on one side of the fence Heidegger, Spengler, Juenger, the whole German ‘conservative revolutionary’ school, Pound, Lewis, Lawrence, Eliot, and Yeats and on the other side Husserl, Jaspers, Thomas Mann, and Joyce. This was the demarcation betwee Sorel [a major figure in creating a politics of violence--and in Sternhell's book-- in his case not fascism but syndicalism], Barres, Montherlant, and Brasillach on the one hand and Gide and Anatole France on the other. They all recognized the importance of irrational factors, they all criticized the existing political and social order, but not all were Fascists or sympathizers of fascism….
“Much has been said and written in recent years, especially on the occasion of the bicentenary of the French Revolution, about the dangers of attempting to realize such utopias [as "the rationalist utopia of the Enlightenment"]. Many people have pointed out the destruction of freedom that necessarily results from a desire to achieve the impossible. But, to the same degree, it is useful to insist on the greatness of the destruction resulting from a conscious abandonment of the rationalist dream of the eighteenth century.
“Thus, if a conclusion is needed now, at the end of our [20th] century, to the great cultural rebellion that swept over Europe in the first half of the twentieth century, it is that to this day no better basis has been found for a human order worthy of the name than the universalism and humanism of the Enlightenment.”
March 10th, 2010 at 2:59 am
As crises in the spheres of economy, climate change, resource depletion, species extinction, and overpopulation increase in scope and frequency, my guess is that various forms of fascism will seem ever more desirable and “necessary.”
March 10th, 2010 at 10:22 am
The enlightenment is a mask to hid the true nature of human cruelty. The above is somewhat esoteric but, I think I have an inkling, notwithstanding the mention of those thinkers such as Heiddeger and others. The Futurists brought advanced industrial design; modernist art; sculpture depicting a new wave; and especially an ideology mimiking what was to come, but the movement lost impetus around 1940. How the Fascists utilised or melded their ideas of modern scientific and bilogical sanitation of purpose is unknown. Perhaps the First World War and it`s depravities fueled the emergence of vengence, seen in the resulting excellence of applied science and ideological deviousness.
March 10th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
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I do not like the idea of Fascism becoming predominant in any or all of its variants.
I believe that peoples of the world need to be subjected to common disciplines for the common good .It is hard to see their common concern for one another being sufficient to ensure their actions derive the human order imaged in universalism and humanism of the Enlightenment.
Perhaps some form of mixed system will coexist
We all live on one planet and I hope that one day we will respect one another sufficiently to share its resources and space peacefully with due regard for our common welfare.
Getting there from where we are now is the challenge of our times and so far we are not up to it.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Sometimes my logic leads me astray — I draw a poor deduction; I have unsound premises; I am too ambiguous in my terms. Does this mean that I should abandon logic in favor of a consistent non-logical approach? Hardly.
It only means that human rationality (which is not equivalent to logicality merely, ala Toulmin) is not perfect. But it is correctable using scientific methodology. We can discover our mistakes and correct them. It may take a while, but it is done.
Too often, the wild-eyed radical makes the desperate claim that there is simply not enough time left to take considered action, that extreme situations require extreme actions, thus laying the bogus argument out for every kind of cruel action against other human beings, for tramping on every sort of liberty.
None of us has a clue how much time we have to deal with any particular problem. We can say, probably, that we should attend to global warming issues sooner than later, but one could hardly make the argument that there is so little time that violent action is required or some kind of harsh authoritarian rule, fascist or otherwise.
My guess is that such extreme actions might actually impeded our progress to work on such issues.
But there will always be an element in any political controversy trying to exploit the ambiguity of the situation to gain control and make the case for extreme action. On the right or the left.
Whatever mind humans have worth having has come to us, I believe, because of Enlightenment thinking and the continued effort to peacefully work out the implications of this thinking.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Could you clarify a bit, John, about what you’re saying.
Are you disagreeing with Sternhell that there ARE some limits to how much politics should be dealt with purely through the rationalist framework, that it is also important to include the nonrational elements of politics, as people actually do them, as they actually work, in one’s approach?
Or are you just singing the praises of the scientific methodology, while also being prepared to acknowledge that there’s a need to address other, nonrational aspects of human political functioning and consciousness?
March 10th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Andy,
I was trying to make a very little comment: that the mere fact of imperfection in the life of human reason cannot be a serious argument for adopting an extreme political irrationalism.
Political philosophies which adopt racist, militarist, and non-scientific approaches (that is, their political assertions cannot be falsified because they are ultimately circular or redundant or just plain nonsense — one thinks here of the Nazi notion of Aryan origins in the land of ice in the sky) are just the sort of irrational political responses that we wish to avoid. Our historical understanding (historical understanding itself being a value in the life human reason) shows us the horrible human suffering that such philosophies create.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:44 am
In his work on the development of modern rationality, Cosmopolis, Stephen Toulmin notes what he calls the very Western tendency to want to start over, wiping the historical slate clean, writing anew on it. This impulse to begin anew may be one of the many non-rational factors at work on our human thinking throughout whatever process we may be in — political, moral, intellectual.
Such an impulse would, I believe, tend to support more radical political movements whose goals are to supplant, not enhance, previous regimes. This has a close affinity to purity myths. One cannot change without purgation, purification, or cleansing. Any remnant of the old will only infect the new.
But this is not how human knowledge works. Human knowledge is evolutionary, building on the past, using proven methodologies for moving forward, methodologies that test new ideas. This process is not flashy, but seriously demanding, demanding concentration and discipline, and social participation.
Is it any wonder that a seriously stressed population might be given to bloody revolution, feeling overwhelmed by historical weight and circumstance?
Perhaps it is a wonder that this does not occur more often.
March 13th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Yet, there is more to the story.
Too often, I think, we westerners exhibit an irrational faith in rationality. Similarly, we fail to apply a scientifically-founded skepticism to science itself. This kind of faith-based relationship to science leads to scientism, which, when we lack awareness, presents its own grave dangers.
March 13th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Lewis Mumford has cogently argued that the spontaneous, instinctual life of man has been losing its grip in the course of history, being steadily displaced by a desire for certainty and control. In reality, he stresses, this process can be compared to a dangerous mutation. In The Transformations of Man first published in 1956, Mumford proceeded to these inexorable conclusions:
“With the invention of the scientific method and the depersonalized procedures of modern technics – cold intelligence, which has succeeded as never before in commanding the energies of nature, already largely dominates every human activity… [Currently] we find scientific ideation and technical skill…at the mercy of an infantile scheme of life, seeking extravagant, super-mechanisms of escape from the problems that [individuals and any] mature society must face.”
Mumford goes on to say:
“Never before was man so free from nature’s restrictions, but never before was he more the victim of his own failure to develop in any fullness, his own specifically human traits.
“This extreme state of post-historic rationalism [may very likely] carry to a further degree the paradox already visible…The more rationalized become the means of living – the more irrational will finally become the end product, man himself.
“In short, power and order, pushed to their final limit, lead [in our time] to their self-destructive inversion: disorganization, violence, mental aberration, subjective chaos.”
March 14th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Another angle on the perils of (what we call) rationalism:
“All the errors and follies of magic, religion, and mystical traditions are outweighed by the one great wisdom they contain – the awareness of humanity’s organic embeddedness in a complex natural system. And all the brilliant, sophisticated insights of Western rationalism are set at naught by the egregious delusion on which they rest – that of human autarchy.”
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“The notion that people begin as separate individuals, who then march out and connect themselves with others, is one of the most dazzling bits of self-mystification in the history of [our] species.”
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— Philip Slater, A Dream Deferred: America’s Discontent and the Search for a New Democratic Ideal
March 14th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
“The ability to generate symbols is…presented as humanity’s unique strength.
“But attached to this strength is a fatal flaw, a capacity to disregard significant feedback in favor of inner symbolic circuitry….A machine is free from everything but its program. A blind man is free from the blinding sun, a deaf man from the deafening thunder.
“Much of the time when we talk about freedom we mean freedom from messages – the ability to pay attention only to interior conceptual patterns.
“Much of our current pathology is based on an unfortunate human tendency to seek autarchy. If the species turns out to be a flop, it will probably owe its demise to this urge. By autarchy I mean self-sufficiency- the ultimate high tariff system in which nothing goes in and nothing goes out….”
— Philip Slater (ibid.)
March 16th, 2010 at 12:25 am
A Story:
“Once upon a time…………………”
*The nation’s leader knew that there were plans for a major act of terrorism against the country. Previous attempts had failed, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they’d succeed.
*Finally, in a a bold terrorist act, a major national symbol was destroyed, and the leader used the opportunity to declare “war on terrorism”…
*…and establish his legitimacy as a leader–even though he hadn’t won a majority in the previous election.
*He referred to the heinous act as a “sign from God” and declared an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors: …a people, who traced their origins to the Middle East and motivation for their “evil” deeds in their religion.
*Soon, the first prison was holding terrorist suspects.
*In a national outburst of patriotism, flags were displayed everywhere, even printed in newspapers.
*Within weeks of the terrorist attack–in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it–the nation’s now-popular leader pushed through legislation that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus
*Police could now intercept mail…and wiretap phones. Suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without acces to their lawyers.
*Police could sneak into people’s homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.
*Within the first months after the terrorist attack, instead of referring to the nation by its usual name, he began to use the term “homeland.”
*As hoped, people’s hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sown.
*Within a year of the terrorist attack, the leader’s advisors determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necesary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation. He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the nation, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single powerful leader.
*And, perhaps the most important, he invited his supporters in industry into the halls of government to help build his new detention camps, his new military, and his new empire which, he said, would ultimately herald peace. Industry and government worked hand-in-glove, in a new type of pseudo-democracy sustained by war.
*The time is 1933. The leader is Adolf Hitler.
*The Reichstag–Germany’s parliament building–was gutted by a fire started by a Dutch terrorist.
*Americans remember Hitler’s Office of Reich Security (the Reichssicherheitshauptam t) simply by its most famous agency’s (the Schutzstaffel) initials: the S.S.
*And you know the rest of the story.
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Sound familiar?
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From Thom Hartmann’s extraordinary, “We, the People.”
March 16th, 2010 at 12:34 am
The American Heritage dictionary presented a definition of the form of government into which the democracies of Spain, Italy and Germany had morphed during the 1930′s.
“Fascism: A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, togther with a belligerent nationalism.”
Mussolini renamed his type of government “fascism.” The original word he used was “corporatism.”
March 16th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Of course, Hanu Man Ji’s quote from Hartman above could equally have been applied to America in 2001 when George W. Bush was the leader. I guess it takes 68 years for the old generation to pass and a new one to be in denial.
March 16th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Agreed, Dan. These trends are Forceful…
Just a note:
Specifically, it appears that the CIA and other of our security agencies absorbed lots o’ Nazi’s after the war.
Beyond this, I would guess that we have no idea what the NSA, et. al. have been up to…and little way of assessing their true power in determining key aspects of our government’s agenda.
March 16th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
From the Scotland Herald:
Final destination Iran?
Exclusive: Rob Edwards
Published on 14 Mar 2010
Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.
The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.
Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.
Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, it is used by the US as a military base under an agreement made in 1971. The agreement led to 2,000 native islanders being forcibly evicted to the Seychelles and Mauritius.
The Sunday Herald reported in 2007 that stealth bomber hangers on the island were being equipped to take bunker-buster bombs.
They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran Dan Plesch, director, Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, University of London
Although the story was not confirmed at the time, the new evidence suggests that it was accurate.
Contract details for the shipment to Diego Garcia were posted on an international tenders’ website by the US navy.
A shipping company based in Florida, Superior Maritime Services, will be paid $699,500 to carry many thousands of military items from Concord, California, to Diego Garcia.
Crucially, the cargo includes 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs.
“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran,” said Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London, co-author of a recent study on US preparations for an attack on Iran. “US bombers are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours,” he added.
The preparations were being made by the US military, but it would be up to President Obama to make the final decision. He may decide that it would be better for the US to act instead of Israel, Plesch argued.
“The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely,” he added. “The US … is using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.”
According to Ian Davis, director of the new independent thinktank, Nato Watch, the shipment to Diego Garcia is a major concern. “We would urge the US to clarify its intentions for these weapons, and the Foreign Office to clarify its attitude to the use of Diego Garcia for an attack on Iran,” he said.
For Alan Mackinnon, chair of Scottish CND, the revelation was “extremely worrying”. He stated: “It is clear that the US government continues to beat the drums of war over Iran, most recently in the statements of Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
“It is depressingly similar to the rhetoric we heard prior to the war in Iraq in 2003.”
The British Ministry of Defence has said in the past that the US government would need permission to use Diego Garcia for offensive action. It has already been used for strikes against Iraq during the 1991 and 2003 Gulf wars.
About 50 British military staff are stationed on the island, with more than 3,200 US personnel. Part of the Chagos Archipelago, it lies about 1,000 miles from the southern coasts of India and Sri Lanka, well placed for missions to Iran.
The US Department of Defence did not respond to a request for a comment.